


Farm or Funeral Home?

by KyroReinbrand



Category: Kyro - Fandom, Kyro Reinbrand, Kyro the Wendigo
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hunters, Joel meets kevin, Kidnapping, Kyro Reinbrand - Freeform, Kyro the wendigo - Freeform, Kyrothewendigo, OC, Original Characters - Freeform, Original Story - Freeform, Scared Joel, Wendigo, Worried Kyro, joel miller, kevin flirting with joel, wendigo hunters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:40:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26161270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyroReinbrand/pseuds/KyroReinbrand
Summary: After years of self isolation Kyro faces the consequences of finally letting himself care about someone. One phone call and a deadline till midnight leave him no choice but to make a life threatening decision. Will he run off and leave Joel to die? Or will he save him by sacrificing himself?





	1. I wish it was just a kinky picture...

The darkness might limit his vision but it did enhance the sound around him. Without the visual stimulus he could focus way better on the surrounding sounds. There were at least three other people in the room according to the amount of footsteps at the same time. Two of them were further away from him, talking to each other. Joel wanted to focus on their conversation but the third guy circling around him with his heavy breathing was taking up all his attention. He did see some light come through the texture of the black hood covering his head, but nothing more than just silhouettes of the three men. Or maybe the heavy breathing was his own, he only just now realized that his heart was beating like crazy. Of course, who wouldn’t be nervous and scared when they just woke up, the last thing they remember being hit on the head by two burglar looking people. If it wasn’t for the tape on his mouth, he would be breathing even louder. He was smart enough not to try and talk, the throbbing headache he was feeling right now prevented him from trying to get hit on the head again. Whoever these people were, they were dicks. Joel wasn’t quite sure what they wanted from him, they looked like burglars but it looked like the only thing they stole was Joel himself. But where did they take him? Was he still close to his apartment? They knocked him out in the alley when he was taking out the trash to the dumpster. Of course it happened in the dumpster alley, that’s where the bad stuff always happens. Not too much time has passed, right? He shouldn’t be far then. Or did they knock him out that hard that hours have passed? Or days? Did it even matter, though? Even if he was just in a neighbour’s house, no one would even know. It’s not like Kyro was smart enough to track his phone, if these guys even took it with them. He assumed it wasn’t in his pocket anymore, or these kidnappers were really dumb. He couldn’t touch his pockets to feel it, they tied his wrists to the chair he was sitting in. They probably weren’t stupid at all, he just liked to imagine they were so he would be getting his hopes up for getting out of this situation safely. 

“You awake yet?” The strong built bald guy standing in front of Joel said when he lifted the black cloth from Joel’s head. Joel squinted his eyes to adjust to the light and looked up at the man in front of him. He was wearing a plain black T-shirt under a sleeveless vest similar to those used by a swat team. His vest was filled with bullets, weapons and other tools. Joel frowned at the guy, confused who the hell he was. “Ah good, you’re with us. Let me introduce myself, bud. My name is Harold. You must be wondering where you are.” Harold said while subtly holding his hand on his gun in his holster. Joel definitely saw it and got the hint. Not that he was planning on making any stupid moves anyway. Kyro furrowed his eyebrows when he saw the tattoo on Harold’s biceps. It was partially covered by the sleeve if his shirt, but the bottom part was visible. A skull, with something on top of it. If Joel learned something from the countless crime shows he watched, it would be to remember the looks of your captor, especially unique things like tattoos. Joel looked back up at Harold and nodded to answer his question. “Good. Well I won’t tell you the address obviously, but you’re here at our ‘pest control’ facility” Harold said with a big grin on his face. The two other guys in the back were snickering, Harold must have made a joke. “Well there’s no point in being secretive with you, we know that you know about wendigos.” Harold said. “Wow. I could have expected to be in this mess because of Kyro.” Was the first thing that went through Joel’s mind. Harold grabbed the end of the tape on Joel’s mout and ripped it off, probably waxing off the little facial hair Joel could grow. “Well, good for you to know that I know about wendigos, but what did I ever do wrong for you to kidnap me?” Joel said and was immediately met with Harold’s knuckles in his cheek. Joel bit his lip trying not to scold in pain, he didn’t even look back up at Harold just so he would t get punched again. “You’re in no position to ask questions here, what’s your name?” “Joel.” “Alright Joel. Here’s the deal. We don’t give a single ass fuck about you, so don’t start feeling special. You know who we want. The wendigo you’re living with, Kyro. You’re just here as bait for your boyfriend.” Harold said while leaning forward to be eye to eye with Joel. Joel sighed and shook his head, “He’s not my- whatever. It’s not like he is going to come for me. He doesn’t even know I’m here, he’s so forgetful he even forgets where he left his phone- what makes you think he will remember where I went? He probably thinks I just went to a bar and got so drunk I ended up in a ditch-“ he rambled on until Harold interrupted. “God I think he’d forget you on purpose. Well, we have an easy solution for that. Luke?” He turned around and gestured at one of the guys in the back to come closer. A tall and wonky guy with dark blonde hair walked to them and clumsily pulled out a phone out of the chest pocket of his vest, a similar one to Harold’s. He held it in front of him and opened the camera to take a picture of Joel tied up in the chair. ”Hey wait that’s my phone!” Joel said as he recognized his spongebob phone case. “Smile!” Luke said and smiled himself while taking a picture. “Looking great. What should I type in the message? Something like ‘wish you had tied me up like this instead of them’ and then the address?” Luke said and looked at Harold for approval. But Harold just looked at him more grossed out than confused. Joel practically shared the same look on his face. “I’m not even answering that.” Harold said. “Cool. Sent it to Kyro.” Luke said and put the phone away. “Oh my god” was all that Joel mumbled under his breath while he shook his head. 

“I’m going to take out the trash, be right back.” Was the last Kyro heard from Joel before he heard the front door open and close. Kyro had been procrastinating to take it down himself and just kept stuffing the trash can until this exact moment where Joel would get enough of it and take it down himself. It was a dick move but hey, it worked. Kyro was laying on his bed, scrolling through his phone and watching TikToks. He had been doing that for a few hours already and would probably continue doing so for another hour or two. He didn’t even notice the front door never opened again that night. Kyro had fallen asleep with his phone still in his hand and woke up in that same position the next morning, awoken by the sound of a text message. Kyro yawned and stretched out his arms, dropping his phone on his face as he did so. “Damn it!” he cursed and picked the phone up again, only now seeing the notification on the screen that he had already forgotten about. It was a message from Joel with a picture attached. ‘Why the fuck is Joel sending me pictures at 10 in the morning?’ Kyro thought as he tapped it to open the picture. Kyro frowned at what he saw on his screen, it was definitely not what he expected. How drunk was Joel to be sending him pictures of his erotic bondage adventures? Kyro typed back a message before laying his phone aside again and going back in for another hour of sleep. 

Luke was staring excitedly at the phone, wondering what kind of response he would be getting. He personally thought his message to Kyro was hilarious, despite the reaction of the other people in the room being pretty disappointing. “Oh! He read it!” Luke cheered when the words ‘read 10:07 AM’ appeared below his text. A bit surprised, Joel furrowed his eyebrows. It was a miracle Kyro was awake at this time of the day. He once read that Wendigos can hibernate and the amount Kyro slept came pretty close to that. “And he’s typing- oh he stopped.” Luke updated them. Joel glanced over at Harold who looked visibly annoyed with the guy. “Oh.” Luke mumbled. “Oh what?” said Harold who turned to look at Luke.  
“He replied, but I don’t think he understood...”  
“Well what did he reply?”  
“He responded with ‘Wrong contact I hope. Send me something like this again and I’ll block you.’ Right after he sent that he went offline.” Luke said and showed the message to Harold. Harold clenched his jaw and took a deep breath to stay calm before snatching the phone out of Luke’s hands. “Why couldn’t you just be straight forward?” Harold said as he typed in a message and handed the phone back to Luke. Luke took it and looked at what Harold had sent and pointed at Joel. “You’re serious? But what about the code-” “If you just shut up, will you? Just wait.” Harold said and pointed at the phone that almost instantly received an incoming call from Kyro. “That’s what I’m talking about.” 

“Ugh. If it’s another weird ass picture I WILL block you motherfucker…” Kyro said when he heard his phone ding from receiving a new message. He turned to his other side and opened his phone to read it, and instantly he was wide awake. “If you don’t come here before midnight, we will kill him. - the hunters…” Kyro read out loud. His heart skipped a beat, the last time he had to deal with the hunters as a teenager, he barely escaped from them. How did they find him? Why did they have to take Joel for fucks sake? Well the answer was quite simple, the only way to get him to go to them was by putting someone he cared about in danger. Kyro was damn mad at himself that their plan would actually work. He hit the call button and waited for someone to pick up. 

“Hello Kyro.” Came from the other side of the line. The voice sounded familiar but none of the hunters ever took the effort to introduce themselves to him. “What do you want.” Kyro replied back, the anger was clear in his voice but mostly because Kyro was using it to hide his fear. “Well what do you think we want? The real question is, what do you want? Do you want to be responsible for your innocent friend’s death? Or do you want us to let him go? It’s up to you.” “Go fuck yourself bald pig.” Kyro snarled back, he remembered the man’s voice now. The only thing Kyro remembered about him was that he was ugly, bald and ruthless. Harold immediately lived up to the last statement as he grabbed his gun and loaded up a bullet, holding it against Joel’s head. Kyro could clearly hear the sound of the gun and Joel’s scared muttering that followed only confirmed they weren’t bluffing. “Fine! Okay! I’ll come. Just leave Joel alone.” Kyro quickly said, afraid Joel would get hurt. Harold lowered the gun and grinned at Luke. “Good. The address is 1526 Berlington road, W.K. Funeral Home. I gave you a deadline, not a second later or your friend is dead. Come alone.” Harold said and hung up the phone. Silence. Kyro stood there in his bedroom with the phone still in his hand, taking everything in that just happened. He hated to admit it, but he was terrified. These hunters have been after him ever since he was twelve and on the run. Dr. Heisenberg hired them to hunt him down, that says a lot about them as hunters. If Heisenberg thinks they’re good at their job, they must have had a lot of success to receive that reputation. That’s where it gets scary, they specialize in killing wendigos. However, wendigos can’t permanently die or be killed. So what in the world do they do to the wendigos they catch?


	2. Let’s all just vibe a little more

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpectedly calm Joel handles the hostage situation better than anyone would have thought, while Kyro contemplates if he should risk his own life save his friend or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi Allison and Liam, I made the chapter a little shorter this time so y’all don’t lose focus xoxo

The hunters weren’t originally planning on giving Joel food. He would only be with them for like a day and he should be able to go without eating for a day, right? Well they were wrong. Harold was pretty sure there was no one more annoying he dealt with other than Luke, but Joel seemed to be even worse. Unbelievable how much that fucker made them do for him just because he kept talking and nagging them with his complaints. By now they had given him two sandwiches and a bottle of water. They even untied him and Joel was now sitting at a chair in the back playing cards with their new recruit, Kevin. Harold was quite ashamed of it but at least he wasn’t trying to ruin their plan. Which was weird, as far as Joel knew his life was on the line so maybe he should be more scared. What Harold didn’t know is that Joel was closer to shitting his pants in fear rather than being relaxed. He was just great at hiding it, and pretending everything is fine is just his coping mechanism. If everything were in fact ‘fine’, Joel wouldn’t be having his shit together as much as he did now. Only once before Joel had been in a situation of life and death, the time he discovered Kyro was a wendigo. A very hungry one. But that all ended well, thank god. This time it wasn’t his friendly roommate who threatened to kill him, instead it were the people who were after that roommate. But, maybe Kyro had a plan. He still had the rest of the day to come up with something. If the guys here were telling the truth, they would let him go even if Kyro would only just show up. So maybe Joel was safe, assuming Kyro wouldn’t leave him for dead. Even if Joel got out of this alive, what about Kyro? Joel laid down a card and looked up at Kevin. “So uh, don’t mind me asking but what is it you guys do? I can’t help but notice Harold called this address a funeral home when on the phone with Kyro. So.. what is your job? Are you guys some type of coroners or what? I can’t remember a funeral home needing guns, aren’t their clients already dead?” Joel dared to ask. Out of the three guys in the room, Kevin and Luke seemed the most approachable. Young guys, not much older than Joel himself, good looking… Maybe Joel could use his charm on one of them. Kevin glanced at Harold before looking back at Joel. “I’m sorry, I don’t know if I’m allowed to elaborate on that. You would have to ask the boss.” He said and nudged his head towards Harold. Joel sighed. Of course he would have to ask Harold. “Cool. very cool. I’ll go ahead and just.. do that.” Joel turned around and hesitantly got up from his chair. Instantly Harold and Luke grabbed their guns and held them ready. “Where do you think you’re going?!” Harold shouted. Joel had his hands up in the air to surrender. “Easy boys, easy. I was just stretching my legs, okay? Is that cool with you?” Harold glared at him but didn’t lower his gun. “Look, if you kill me you have no leverage anymore. We both know you’re not going to shoot me, at least not until midnight so why don’t we all just… vibe a little more?” Joel asked and looked around for approval. Luke lowered his gun and nodded, he agreed with Joel. Harold was a bit more hesitant but eventually followed up. “Like I said, I wanted to stretch my legs a bit. We have all been cramped up in this small room for a few hours now, maybe could all use some fresh air? Do something to kill the time?” Harold listened to Joel and to everyone’s surprise he seemed to agree. “Alright. I have something in mind. I’ll give you a little tour, under the condition that we cuff your hands and keep a gun on you at all times. We don’t want you running off now do we?” Harold said, this time he had a big grin on his face. He knew exactly where Joel was going with this, he overheard him talk to Kevin and it wasn’t rocket science to figure out he wanted to know what they would do to Kyro. So maybe the best way to stop Joel from feeling too comfortable was by showing him exactly what would happen to his friend. 

Kyro had called Maeve countless times, but just as he expected, she didn’t reply. It had been two years now since he last saw her. And they didn’t part in the most friendly order. The last thing she told him was ‘You’re dead to me’ after she destroyed the only weapon in history actually capable of killing a wendigo. Apparently she wanted him to suffer for eternity, so how stupid was it of him to think she might help him out? Well, maybe because she is the only person other than Joel that he knows well enough. It’s quite tough to realize you have literally no one in your life to have your back, other than the person being used against you. In defeat Kyro put his phone down and stared at the wall. He had to either get really creative right now, or face the fact that this might end in a worst case scenario. Well, what would the worst case scenario even be? His first and most safe option would be to just not show up. The hunters might know where he lives but he could use the time he still has to pack up and run off again. That plan however meant Joel would probably die. The second option he had was to go to the hunters, and get Joel out. He could fight them, he had done it before. On the other hand, the place they were holding Joel was probably their head base and there would be a lot more hunters that he could never take at once. His third option was the worst of all. Going to the hunters, surrender so they will set Joel free. And then see from there what would happen. It’s not like they could actually kill him, right? As long as he would be alive there would be hope for a chance to escape. That way at least Joel would be safe. 

The long hallway the two hunters and Joel walked through was oddly decorated like some sort of natural museum. Both opposite walls had a neat collection of pairs of antlers, each set placed on a wooden shield. A golden name plate hung under all of them, with a date and location. All antlers were slightly different, like they were from different types of deer. The locations seemed to match the type of antlers. One of the biggest sets of antlers seemed to be those of a Moose, the location was some town in Canada. For the average person this would look like nothing more than just a fine collection of deer antlers from all over the world. But Joel’s skin had turned a shade paler from the moment he walked in, because he knew damn well deer are not the only creatures with antlers. Harold proudly led the way through the hallway and glanced over at the antlers to admire them. “This is only our public collection. Our cover up might be a funeral home, but we have other side businesses as well, like selling antlers. We show our customers this hallway as our catalogus, they get to pick what type of antlers they want and we deliver. It’s quite a niche business but sometimes we have private buyers who know about our more exclusive services.” Harold explained proudly to Joel who wasn’t as talkative as usual even though a thousand questions ran through his head. Harold pressed the button on the wall at the end of the hallway. The dark oak door slid open and revealed to be an elevator. “Step inside.”


	3. Farm and funeral home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joel gets a full on introduction how the hunters run their business, and it aint pretty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been procrastinating posting this chapter bc im very insecure ok dont come after me hopefully it gives you guys muse

Harold made room for Joel and Luke to step inside the elevator first. Once everyone was inside including himself, Harold inserted a key in the wall of the elevator and twisted it. None of the buttons were touched, yet the elevator started moving already. Joel could barely feel if they went up or down, but he assumed down according to the time it took for them to get to the desired floor. If their cover up was a funeral home, the building was probably no skyscraper. He hadn’t seen the outside of the building yet so he couldn’t be sure but it was just a wild guess. Finally the elevator stopped and the door opened to reveal another long hallway, this one looking more like a dungeon. Both walls had multiple doors on them, heavy rusty metal doors. Each door was decorated with a similar type of antler as the hallway a bunch of floors above them. Joel heard a lot of muffled noise coming from behind the metal doors. Growling, yelling and screaming. It was a mix of monstrous screeches and human cries for help.

“This is where we restock on our products.” Harold said and opened one of the metal doors with his set of keys.

The noise immediately became more intense, which obviously matched what was inside the room. Harold flipped a switch and a singular light bulb hanging in the middle of the cramped room turned on. Once Joel could see what was inside, he stepped back in horror but Luke pushed him forward again, forcing him to enter the room.

“Don’t be scared, they can’t hurt you.” Luke said.

Alongside the walls of the room were all five foot tall cages, most of them had a wendigo trapped inside. Their antlers, or at least the ones that had antlers had them sticking out on top of the cage. The cages had too small of a grid for the wendigos to even reach their hands through, so Harold was right about them not being able to hurt him. Being hurt by them was not really the thing Joel was worried about. He was more worried about them being hurt. The five feet tall cages were way too small for most of them. The cages were only like two feet wide and deep as well, giving them no room to even sit. They were forced to stand at all times, most couldn’t even stand fully erect.

“...Why?” was all that came out of Joel’s mouth.

Harold laughed and walked closer to a cage. The wendigo inside barely even responded. It looked more like a zombie than a living humanoid.

“See this fella? He’s been here a few decades at least. You must be aware of the fact that they can’t die, right?” Harold asked Joel who nodded in response. “Well, as wendigo hunters we had to be creative with solutions to ‘get rid’ of wendigos. Despite common belief, our main job is not really to kill them, but to make sure they will never harm another person again. And preferably we make them pay for the murders they have committed. That’s why one of our solutions is this, basically an antler farm where we keep them from ever seeing the light of day again.” Harold said, clearly proud of their work.

“Farm? I don’t understand.” Joel replied back.

“You must have noticed that your friend doesn’t have antlers on his head all the time, now does he? When is the only time you see his antlers?”

“Well, I first saw them when they had been growing out for a while because he was starving and losing control…”

“Exactly. They don’t have a lot of control over the growth of their antlers. So in order to farm them, we have to almost starve them and put them through terrible conditions just for them to lose their minds and their control. Their antlers will grow out on their own. All we have to do is cut them off. Luke? Will you demonstrate?”

Luke gave Harold a nod and grabbed a dirty bone saw that was laying on a small metal table. He plugged it in and turned it on. The Wendigos responded to the sound instantly. Luke could easily reach the top of the cages, he was at least six and a half feet tall. He grabbed one of the antlers sticking out and pulled it closer, making the wendigos head press against the top of the cage to provide easy access. The sound coming from the bone cutter reminded Joel of a dentist drilling a cavity, but it most likely would feel even worse. The wendigo cried out in pain, despite it looking more like a monster, his cries were very human. Joel could only assume that the wendigo felt every bit of pain from it. Joel was no vet or biologist but as far as he remembered, deer had no nerve endings in their antlers. Apparently wendigos do. It took a while and a bit of effort until Luke finally cut off the second antler as well.

“Do they grow back?” Joel asked them.

“Yes, that’s the whole point of this or our buddy over there wouldn’t have been here for decades. They do grow back, but it can take a while. Especially if they receive no food intake, they also don’t have enough nutrients to grow a new pair of antlers over and over. So after they have been cut, they do receive proper food for a while.”

“But they eat people. Isn’t your whole job to stop them from doing that? How do you get food for them?”

“Well if Kyro doesn’t show up tonight, you’re on the menu.” Luke joked.

Joel gulped, he obviously didn’t know for certain if Luke was being serious or not.

“No, we don’t kill people for them. Why do you think our cover up is a funeral home?” Harold winked.

He opened the door back out again and let Luke and Joel go first.

* * *

According to Google Maps it was a two hour drive from Kyro’s apartment to the funeral home. The reviews were all really good and they had a 4,5 star rating. Kyro hated to see it. He had already made the decision of actually going there. He couldn’t let Joel get hurt because of this, Joel should have never had to deal with a wendigo in the first place. Kyro knew that this day would have come eventually. It just sucked it had to happen when he was finally getting his life back together. He still had hope of getting out of this alive. Just because he was going there didn’t mean he would make it easy for them. But maybe, just in case it would not end well, he had to take some precautions. Or well, some instructions for Joel. Kyro had experience with staying off the grid. Once Joel would be free, he should make sure to never be found by them again as well. Even if it meant that no one else on earth would be there to come save Kyro. Kyro dug into his archive with documents and put everything important for Joel together in a box. On a paper he wrote down all the important notes on what to do and what places to contact for fake ID etc. Kyro would be busy with this for another hour, but he still had enough time for it.


End file.
